Thank you.
"Third Edition" rules, &c.
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I am the longtime owner of a First Edition copy of the MB Axis & Allies. (I also own a copy of the ill-fated Hasbro CD-ROM, which I’ve played every now and then when I’ve felt desperate, despite the bugs and brain-dead AI opponents.) I’ve finally got some willing opponents close by I can play with again, and so dusted the game off last night. The combination of a fuzzy memory and some confusing things I’ve run across online have left me with a few questions.
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The CD-ROM game introduced some “Third Edition” rules. Was an actual Third Edition rulebook ever published, or did this “Edition” simply consist of the four new items shown in the Options screen of the computer game (Western Canada no longer bordering Atlantic Ocean, defending subs may submerge, new units may be placed in enemy-occupied sea zone, aircraft may retreat from amphibious invasion)?
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Do face-to-face and PBEM players often use the “Third Edition”, or is that mainly the province of those who play over on Axis & Allies World Club with the CD-ROM version?
2a) Nobody plays the First Edition rules I’ve got in my box anymore, right?
- How about other variations? The two-hit battleship is pretty popular, I gather. Any others?
3a) Speaking of the two-hit battleship, does that variant typically favor one side more than another?
3b) I’d be especially interested to know if there is a widely-used method of nerfing Heavy Bombers, which always seemed way overpowered to me. Maybe just two dice rather than three would do the trick?- The official set of rules clarifications posted over at AAMC helped with some rules, but left me scratching my head with this part:
Rocket development gives one of your antiaircraft guns rocket power once per turn. Unlike an antiaircraft gun, a rocket can move before combat and fire during combat. A rocket can also move during non-combat, if it has not just been captured, or if it has not fired.
It makes it sound like the Rockets technology converts one of your AA guns into a “Rocket”, that can then fire…during Combat? At enemy units?
I always implemented the rule this way: at the beginning of your Combat Move phase, look to see if any of your AA guns are 3 spaces or less away from an enemy IC. If so, pick one such gun, and one target IC; roll one die; opponent surrenders that many IPCs to the bank. Continue with the rest of your turn just the same as if none of this even happened. I have trouble squaring this with the quoted text above.
- Finally, an observation rather than a question: As soon as I learned of the submerge rule, I have preferred to play with it, even if I am not applying any other Third Edition rules. But I’m doing so with an added wrinkle. Under my house rules, a defending sub may submerge at the end of a round of combat, but only if all of the surviving attacking units are air units. If attacking naval units survive, and there is nowhere the sub may withdraw to, the sub has no choice but to fight it out. It just seemed right to me to do it this way, considering what I took to be the primary purpose of the submerge rule. Anyone else do this?
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- The CD-ROM game introduced some “Third Edition” rules. Was an actual Third Edition rulebook ever published, or did this “Edition” simply consist of the four new items shown in the Options screen of the computer game (Western Canada no longer bordering Atlantic Ocean, defending subs may submerge, new units may be placed in enemy-occupied sea zone, aircraft may retreat from amphibious invasion)?
I’m not sure if there is an actual 3rd Edition rulebook. Hopefully someone else might have a better answer on that.
But yes those are the main changes.- Do face-to-face and PBEM players often use the “Third Edition”, or is that mainly the province of those who play over on Axis & Allies World Club with the CD-ROM version?
2a) Nobody plays the First Edition rules I’ve got in my box anymore, right?
2 - It depends. I don’t really play at any of the other online clubs (DAAK, AAMC, FoE, etc…) but I seem to remember 2nd Edition being used a lot with the exception of the CD clubs who will use 3rd.
When I played Classic (what we call 2nd or 3rd edit) more I got in the habit of always clarifying which ruleset we were using just in case.2a - correct.
- How about other variations? The two-hit battleship is pretty popular, I gather. Any others?
3a) Speaking of the two-hit battleship, does that variant typically favor one side more than another?
3b) I’d be especially interested to know if there is a widely-used method of nerfing Heavy Bombers, which always seemed way overpowered to me. Maybe just two dice rather than three would do the trick?3 - Paratroopers is fun sometimes too.
3a - an argument can be made for both sides, but I never liked seeing the UK with two 2-hit BB’s in the Atlantic, so I tended to think it helped the Allies.
3b - Just don’t play with tech. :-)
- The official set of rules clarifications posted over at AAMC helped with some rules, but left me scratching my head with this part:
Rocket development gives one of your antiaircraft guns rocket power once per turn. Unlike an antiaircraft gun, a rocket can move before combat and fire during combat. A rocket can also move during non-combat, if it has not just been captured, or if it has not fired.
It makes it sound like the Rockets technology converts one of your AA guns into a “Rocket”, that can then fire…during Combat? At enemy units?
I always implemented the rule this way: at the beginning of your Combat Move phase, look to see if any of your AA guns are 3 spaces or less away from an enemy IC. If so, pick one such gun, and one target IC; roll one die; opponent surrenders that many IPCs to the bank. Continue with the rest of your turn just the same as if none of this even happened. I have trouble squaring this with the quoted text above.
It is essientially a free SBR run. I can’t remember if you can actually move it prior to combat or during combat move to get it in range, but you can’t hit units, you just get to make them lose IPCs.
- Finally, an observation rather than a question: As soon as I learned of the submerge rule, I have preferred to play with it, even if I am not applying any other Third Edition rules. But I’m doing so with an added wrinkle. Under my house rules, a defending sub may submerge at the end of a round of combat, but only if all of the surviving attacking units are air units. If attacking naval units survive, and there is nowhere the sub may withdraw to, the sub has no choice but to fight it out. It just seemed right to me to do it this way, considering what I took to be the primary purpose of the submerge rule. Anyone else do this?
In the Revised Ruleset (4th edition, I guess), subs can submerge after any round as long as a destroyer (new unit added in Revised) isn’t present. Which seems similiar to your house rule.
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To my knowledge, the Third Edition rules were never published outside of the CD game. I doubt anyone plays by the first edition rules anymore simply because the Axis has practically no chance of winning with the Commander-in-Chief rule in play.
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I do not know of a rule book either.
But another significant change in “3rd edition”…
ARM can move 1 move before boarding a TRN. That can be HUGE against someone who does not realize it…
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- The official set of rules clarifications posted over at AAMC helped with some rules, but left me scratching my head with this part:
Rocket development gives one of your antiaircraft guns rocket power once per turn. Unlike an antiaircraft gun, a rocket can move before combat and fire during combat. A rocket can also move during non-combat, if it has not just been captured, or if it has not fired.
It makes it sound like the Rockets technology converts one of your AA guns into a “Rocket”, that can then fire…during Combat? At enemy units?
I always implemented the rule this way: at the beginning of your Combat Move phase, look to see if any of your AA guns are 3 spaces or less away from an enemy IC. If so, pick one such gun, and one target IC; roll one die; opponent surrenders that many IPCs to the bank. Continue with the rest of your turn just the same as if none of this even happened. I have trouble squaring this with the quoted text above.
It is essientially a free SBR run. I can’t remember if you can actually move it prior to combat or during combat move to get it in range, but you can’t hit units, you just get to make them lose IPCs.
The rule allowing movement of an AA gun during Combat Movement before making a Rocket attack was introduced in a rules supplement to the Second Edition rules in 1991. Rocket attacks actually occur during the Combat phase rather than the Combat Movement phase. Other than that, you’ve both got it right.
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@ncscswitch:
But another significant change in “3rd edition”…
ARM can move 1 move before boarding a TRN. That can be HUGE against someone who does not realize it…
My 3rd Edition rulebook explicitly says this is illegal. Could you double-check yours? Thanks.
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@ncscswitch:
But another significant change in “3rd edition”…
ARM can move 1 move before boarding a TRN. That can be HUGE against someone who does not realize it…
My 3rd Edition rulebook explicitly says this is illegal. Could you double-check yours? Thanks.
That is not based on the rules, that is something that Hasbro CD-Rom (the only 3rd edition of the game that I know of) allows.
Fire up the CD and test it… :-)
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So the rules say it’s illegal, but the program allows it. In my business, that’s what we call a “bug”.
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As I said, I have never seen a printed 3rd edition rule set, so I go by what the game allows.
Hasbro also has “scorched earth” and “paratrooper” options.
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There should be a PDF file of the rulebook on the CD.
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Yes in addition more than one aagun is allowed to be in each territory.
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All the PBEM clubs use 2nd edition or 4th edition rules. Only AAWC uses 3rd edition.
2a) maybe somebody but I don’t know him.
- A popular one is axis advantage- Germany starts with jets and Japan starts with supersubs. Big advantage for axis in a tech game.
3a) Not sure since I’ve never played a 1-hit battleship game.
3b) That is a rule in 4th edition…never tried it myself though.-
The CD-ROM won’t allow the rocket to move during combat. It fires during combat if within three spaces of an enemy complex. It is like having a free bombing run every turn.
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Sounds similar to the wolfpack rule…which is used in some club games. The rule is enemy aircraft cannot attack a submarine unless friendly naval units are present.
Some additional comments to other posters on this thread:
-Moving an armor one space before boarding a tranny is a game bug and illegal to do in rated games. The CD will also allow you to move through a canal in all circumstances…just don’t break the rules.
-There is a downloadable 3rd edition rulebook on the AAWC site…it is under ‘Other options’ under downloads. You need Winzip to open it.
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Correct you cannot move a tank one space and load a transport…legally. It is a bug.
The program also had a bug where you can attack a territory with the bomber and if it had a factory you can both take IPC away and use the bomber in combat… not legal
Their is one set of sea zones on the map that allow a ship to move three spaces ( its in the sea zones east of Australia or near S america i forgot which… not legal
A few other bugs as well. I really wish that game was fully working on XP. I would play that any day than triple A because it at least looks like a decent map.
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The 4.2 patch fixes the double bomber bug fyi.
Lots of players who have XP can play in the Warzone…the 4.2 patch makes this possible as well.
Problem is when people with Vista try to play the game…that problem hasn’t been solved yet.
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I can;t even get my PRINTER to work with my new Vista machine… :roll:
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Wow. Some really informative and helpful replies. Thanks.
-There is a downloadable 3rd edition rulebook on the AAWC site…it is under ‘Other options’ under downloads. You need Winzip to open it.
I downloaded that–thanks for the link–and it is the .PDF of the manual for the game. It explains the “Third Edition” rule changes, but isn’t what I’d consider an actual new edition of the rulebook.
If there never was a full rulebook that was included with any print runs of the board game, or available for download/purchase to owners of the board game, that makes it more understandable that the non-CD-ROM-based A&A crowd pretty much universally sticks to Second or Fourth Edition rules.
Also, it would take some creativity with the bits to bring the Marines and Destroyers from Iron Blitz over to the board game. If I were Hasbro, I would’ve prepared a “Third Edition/Iron Blitz Expansion Pack” to sell in stores with a shiny new rulebook, and pieces for the two new unit types, when Iron Blitz came out. But that would’ve required the project as a whole to have been much better-conceived than it actually was, I guess.
(For instance, how incompetent do you have to be to print way, way too few copies of even a poorly executed computer implementation like A&A: Iron Blitz, and never press any fresh CDs even when used copies turn up on eBay for $100-plus? Was there some reason they left money sitting on the table like that?)
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